By Anita Draycott

The fifty-kilometre corniche road of hairpin turns from Sorrento to Ravello has to be one of the most giddying, toe-clenching drives in the world. A series of vertical cliffs, rising as high as 300 metres, plunge into an impossibly blue Mediterranean Sea as the coastline of white-washed seaside towns cling to the hills amongst a landscape of terraced olive and lemon groves and umbrella pines. Arguably, the most spectacular scenery along the entire Mediterranean, it attracts swarms of visitors, especially in summer, but mercifully the crowds will never spoil the Amalfi Coast. All the engineers in Italy couldn’t widen the serpentine road—which at some switchbacks requires a three-point turn.